Bamdad Bidar Intro “The Silences Louder than a Thousand Screams”
In the heart of the dark nights of prison, in the silence of solitary confinement, amidst the shuddering of the nooses, and in the hopeful and anxious gazes of prisoners, there are stories that need to be heard. Bamdad Bidar shares the voices that were whispered in silence. We speak of the suffering that took place behind locked doors. Of the nights when the lights were on but hope was extinguished. Of the silences that were louder than a thousand screams. This is not a bid for tears or condolences. This is to stand up against oblivion, against execution, against the official narrative. We want to record and honor the names, faces, suffering. These are stories that the official media shuns, but we reveal them like a hidden treasure. Bamdad Bidar is an attempt to record, retell and awaken. We present these pages to prevent dehumanization from becoming normalized. This is a place for storytelling, for awakening, for rethinking the meaning of justice in life and human dignity. Join us on this difficult but necessary journey. — From the introduction of Bamdad Bidar
The Concluding Page Starts the Journey to a New Dawn
This is not the end. This is just the first issue. This is our first attempt to write from the darkness, looking toward the light, from separation in hope of connection; from the forgotten ones whose names must not be forgotten. Bamdad Bidar is…a struggle to document the voices of suffering from the hearts of resistance, the heart of life. We do not seek immediate results nor common consensus. We have come to write, to read, and to remain. The next issue is on its way, with louder voices, with new stories. The time is now, if these lines speak to you, if an image, a word, a story lingered in your heart, write to us, read, recount. We build Bamdad Bidar not in the [prison] editorial office but in the hearts and minds of its readers. We are grateful to all the writers and designers who helped us create this first issue.
Names and Thoughts in Between the Pages
In the journal’s 20 pages of graphics and stories, there are personalized and personable portraits of, and of interactions among, different prisoners. There is a section describing Qarchak in which the terror of Tuesdays is vividly spelled out:
When I entered the women’s prison in Qarchak… I didn’t realize that a deeper tragedy was unfolding beneath the surface of this prison every day and every moment: a terrifying nightmare known as the death sentence, and many women enduring this inhumane decree with multiple offenses. Tuesdays were the days when death row inmates were transferred to solitary confinement, carried out at midnight through the back door for the implementation of the sentence… Tuesdays would turn into a night of horror when, with each time the lights were turned on, everyone would wait. Whose name was going to be read aloud?… One day on a fateful Tuesday…. Around 1 a.m., the piercing sound of hysterical screaming and a scuffle from solitary took hold of all of us. No one slept until after noon. For years, the sound of those screams rang in my ears… Dictatorial governments may prefer to choose the easiest way to prevent crime, but is human life so worthless? What if the law is wrong?
Another entry described the cruel torment of awaiting the execution of oneself or one’s cellmate/friend and the fight to make NO TO EXECUTIONS a societal outcry and mass struggle in Iran:
Half asleep and half awake, everyone looked at each other wordlessly. [Cigarette] lighters would come out one by one, and the cellmates would take turns. We would blow the smoke toward the bathroom, and the smell of cigarettes would mix with the nauseating odor of the toilets. But who would give that any thought in these circumstances? No one, but those who have experienced them, can imagine what these nights were like. We experienced them, we who had been imprisoned alongside those who were executed. We have experienced death by edict, death legally ordained by Sharia law of a human being at the hands of another human being ... Public opinion has not yet come to the realization that executions are state murder. But once we do realize that executions are a type of murder, that these authorized murders are committed daily have put us [in Iran] at the top of the list of [executioner] countries in the world, everything will change. Can’t we think of alternative punishments to the death penalty? Have you thought about it yet?
“The Savagery of the Rulers”
There are four vignettes by this title that challenge the reader to think about where humanity has come to and has yet to go as the powerful in society still rule over others with “creative” tools of death and torture in order to “intimidate the people”. It traces how the guillotine was invented in France as a supposedly more humane way to kill people where the victim avoids seeing the hangman’s rope. The writer points out that
This intimidation only includes the lower class and ordinary people of a society…petty drug dealers are executed, while the murderers of a [whole] nation become heroes but the murderer of an individual is executed…..Just tell me, did the hungry person who is executed actually kill hundreds of thousands with just one signature or not?!
NO TO EXECUTION OF ANYONE, ANYWHERE
This is the lofty demand of a section of Iran’s prisoners, especially among some far-sighted political prisoners and their supporters in the Iranian diaspora (see call for May 31st global protests). As the pages of Bamdad Bidar indicate, theirs is not a call for revenge but a cry of humanity to reach for a brighter dawn, one with no more nooses, guillotines, electric chairs, firing squads, burnings at the stake, crucifixions, or drownings at sea. They extend their hand for us to join them on this journey and awaken into a new dawn. We reach out our hand in return, proceeding in the interest of humanity, and demand that Iran stop the executions and free all the political prisoners NOW. At the same time, in the midst of threatening “nuclear talks,” more than ever we say to the US, no war threats and moves against Iran and lift the sanctions.
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FOOTNOTE
1. https://iranwire.com/en/news/141410-irans-2025-execution-total-hits-434-after-seven-more-people-hanged/.